The Doobie Brothers, yeah I know what you're thinking. Actually, I have no idea. More than likely you're likely asking, "What were you thinking?"
Fair.
As a kid it was "China Grove" that really got under my skin. That riff. Bam! My aunt and uncle had an 8 track copy of The Captain and Me along with a few others that to this day are indelibly stamped into my DNA. It's weird though that I don't remember more about that tape, aside from the weird fades and clicks as it moved from track to track and the cover. Something about that overpass just felt, sad.
There were a few songs by the band I always really liked, but by the time I really got into music, the band was old and tired. Well, old at any rate they'd been around for years, how old were those guys? I mean my goodness I was listening to them when I was ten. Then when Michael McDonald joined the band things changed. There was a four year period between 1976 and 1980 then this new brand of Doobie music was striking a balance between blue eyed soul and rock with groove. This was the commercial peak of the band, and for many the band's nadir. To me, it's hit and miss (ah, the hits). I was sort of partial to the radio hits with Michael singing. I mean, they were catchy.
It was hard to reconcile this soft rock machine as having the same musical core as those early albums. The year was 1980, and the band was back on the charts with One Step Closer, and while it didn't perform to the level as their 1978 release Minute by Minute, it went platinum but the writing was on the wall and the band would call it quits in '82 with a Farewell Tour. Yeah, that didn't last forever ... but it was long enough I guess.
I went into this with a bit of a bias, mainly because over the years this era of the band has been so divisive. I was expecting to just take a lot of pithy shots and make fun of the album but with the passage of time, and having a broader appreciation than I had as a kid I have to say this surprised me.
It surprised me that this was so popular. Yeah, I know it was the tail end of the '70s soft rock bonanza that would become known as Yacht Rock. I mean, this was soft rock with a lot of breezy grooves, sax solos and some undeniably catchy songs, but it just seemed to be so vanilla. It was like elevator jazz for the cool kids (you know the cool kids weren't listening to this in 1980).
This was my first listen to this album and I actually really liked this far more than I expected which actually sort of surprised me. The songs when they were good, they were really good. The opening to "One Step Closer" still feels like the opening to a television show. More often than not I imagine Don Pardo is about to tell me who is hosting the show.
I was actually just thinking I'd just it cursory spin and then song wise cracks that were forty year too late to matter, or be clever. Instead as I puttered around in the basement I played the record over and over. Each time I found a something else to appreciate. Is this a lost classic? Nah, but it really is enjoyable, and the songs that were radio friendly back in the day still held a little more appeal to me than I expected.
This was a '70s album that landed in 1980 that marked the end of an era.
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